DAY 2 A restful night with breakfast en terrace in front of the station. I wander into town across the huge fast-flowing Adour river- the colour of dark jade and on to the Cathedral. It has a lovely modern golden altar frontal and lectern.

In the dark at the back a woman sits at a desk in a pool of light. She stamps my first selo in my credencial- now I feel like a real pilgrim with my shell on my pack and my first stamp. In fact I am a real pilgrim.

My pack is too heavy so I'm posting my iPad onto Santiago. I'm going to blog from my phone- tricky. I will have to add pictures as and when I find an Internet cafe, if such things exist on route?

Three fellow pilgrims are waiting for the train to Irun. I eye up their packs....

The TGV arrived late and then crawled along to Irun, so it a felt very relaxed start. We stopped at St Jean de Luz; a pretty resort where we had a family-day on the beach the year before last. Happy memories!

Now I'm sitting in another coffee shop in Irun waiting for the mobile shop to open. I met a nice old Italian Camino veteran on the train who showed me how the yellow arrows work.... extremely low key considering I'm navigating 500 miles by them. More anon.... Amen.